


In Our Darkest Hour

by thorstbench



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Dehumanization, Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Enemies, Graphic Description, Grave Desacration (nightmare), Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Nightmares, What-If, post-apocalyptic setting, this was supposed to be the bloodborne au but it's too modern so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-08-10 21:22:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20142184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorstbench/pseuds/thorstbench
Summary: Shiro hasn't escaped the Galra, and he's become Haggar's pawn, who uses him to hunt down the last residues of human resistance on Earth. Unknowing that Shiro's past ties are still free and very much alive, surviving the barren wasteland Galra has made out of Earth, Haggar sends Shiro to one last hunt—and Shiro finds his target, but his target finds Shiro too.





	1. It's a perfect world

**Author's Note:**

> Hi and welcome to the What If Shiro became Haggar's puppet all along, without escaping thanks to Ulaz?  
This idea was born from the Sheith Secret Santa 2018 but then I started actually playing BB and I realized, this was going nowhere a BB AU would go, so stay tuned for a proper one, because I am Obsessed.
> 
> Anyway!! Get ready for lots of angst & Keith losing his mind after Shiro & his (very difficult) recovery!! I really hope I give this the nuance it deserves, but just know that chapter 2 is already being beta'd and will be out next week! (And it may be a cameo to TBP's episode ooooop) 
> 
> A general intro to the TW's for this chapter: you will get to the end of it asking, but Adam, why didn't you put this Very Obvious Tag? And the answer is, because THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENS!!!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!!

When it opens its eyes, it doesn’t know where it is. When it takes its first breath, it’s always a ragged and forced one, like something is strangling its chest, tight coils that keeps its lungs from expanding each time they contract. Its whole body then starts to ache, but it doesn’t mind. It doesn’t have to mind, it only has to follow, to comply.

The body moves, one step at a time, it retraces the same steps it was once taught—by who, it doesn’t remember. She has a name, but no face to be associated with it.

She waits for it to be in front of her, to kneel and never raise its eyes to her. She always waits, she is not the one who must come to it. She wears dark robes that hide all of her lithe frame, deep purples and hints of golden, and when she looks down on it, she smiles. Pleased. Her head is always covered, and it can only make out hints of white hair.

It goes down on its knees and keeps quiet.

“Welcome back, Champion,” she greets—like she always does.

It knows what follows. It does not answer. It only moves its body, and offers her its arm, letting her take it with slender fingers, sharp nails. She purrs a pleased sound, slender fingers curling around the cold metal and holding it tight with force. It doesn’t feel pain.

“You have been successful in your last hunt,” she chimes with off-key notes, she reminds it of old music boxes—ruined by time to the point that not all the notes come out properly. “Here is your prize.” Magic crackles through her fingers, down into the hardness of its forearm. A prickling feeling runs through its body as raw energy pours inside and brings power within its body.

The more magic passes through, the more the metal grows hot, searing and growing onto its skin, eating up parts of its bicep until it almost reaches its shoulder. It stays until she’s finished. After all, she is the one who decides when to stop, and what comes next.

It stays until she covers her hands with her robes and gestures it away, back from wherever it came from. Her smile has disappeared into something sharper, something wickeder, something darker. She does not look at it with endearing, nor diligent patience. “Go out, now. Kill a few beasts,” she barks this time—annoyed and bored, “it’s for your own good.”

It raises and follows her instructions, walking away towards the armory.

Today, it hunts for her, as it always does.

* * *

For a long, blurry tic, bright purple is all it sees. Purple lights in edged lines and blinding light. It wakes up on its table, surrounded by its physicians. In front of it, the white-masked capes accompany its Lady. She doesn’t smile to it as she does in its dreams. Here, she is sharp and double-edged, she cuts and she strikes like a venomous diamond-back. Her teeth remind it of snakes, just like the bright yellow eyes.

“Have it ready by dusk, there is a new hunt to come.” Her voice is cracks and splinters when she speaks, it notices how many of the physicians shift uncomfortably stiff on their feet.

“Yes, Ma’am,” they say in unison as they scramble to free it from its restraints.

The Champion stands, bare and open, kneeling down as soon as it has control of its body.

Its Lady waits, she always does, and then she turns and exits the laboratory. It counts four tics, and then it is back on its feet, moving behind her as she explains. “One of the prisoners will evade tonight, you are to follow him and nothing else.” She turns to look at the Champion. “Do you understand?”

“I understand,” it deadpans.

Its Lady nods, pleased, and slithers through the cold corridor. “You will wait until the Earthling has reached his companions. Once you locate them, I want you to kill them and bring their bodies to me.”

“I understand.”

Just like that, its Lady turns and walks away bringing her druids along.

The Champion awaits and prepares for yet another hunt.

* * *

Earth is a silent, rotten place. The Champion has always seen it like this. It has no memory of whatever it was before, or how it became this broken, barren thing. Its Lady made it so, and that is enough to not question her will. It owes its life to her, and she is magnanimous in allowing it to walk in her same presence.

The Champion earned its title among all the other hunters, it was granted its Lady’s favour by winning countless battles for her. The Champion has won and killed many of its own kin too, poor little things that couldn’t bare their Lady’s gifts anymore. It cut them down without grace or remorse, as its Lady commanded.

When the leash loosened, it assumed command of its action, to be but an extension of its Lady’s desires. When the leash tightened, it stopped and listened and complied. When the leash snapped on its skin, it stilled and waited until the lesson was learned.

The day is dark. The sky brings heavy clouds within itself, threatening to pour down all its poisoned water and dirt and sand. All around the Champion is wasteland. Skeletons of buildings and crumbled walls. Spikes of rusted metal and tore and washed-up cloth stuck to them are scattered around its field vision. Among the debris, it can make out a shattered road, cracked with aquifers. What’s left of primitive cars is eaten up by the chasm, or crushed under heavy blocks of cement. It has been like this for decaphoebs. Whatever it was before, it doesn’t matter anymore.

There is, however, a matter of knowing it now; hunts cannot be fruitful otherwise, and the Champion knows Earth like no other Galra hunter does. It knows many things about it, like it’s the back of its palm.

Earth is never quiet.

Sometimes it shrieks with animal pain, sometimes it hums with the hammering sounds of battling beasts, sometimes it hisses with the slithering wind passing through the city’s carcass. Quiet, it has learned, is a bad omen. Quiet means dangerous things linger too close, and when they are, it is only a matter of time before they cross its path.

Old beasts its Lady discarded for her own experiments, abominations that have survived the fall down from the Ring.

The Champion marches quietly, tracking down its target. It has been days since the human was allowed to escape the Ring’s prison. Cagers chased him down, shot at his spaceship, and crashed in the process. They let him think he’d made it, that they thought he’d died in the crash, that he had a headstart on the chase that would begin once the ship was retrieved and found empty.

Instead, the Champion has been following the human through underground tunnels, even when the water reached its knees and slick, dead things hid a much deeper step, a sharper edge, a crooked hook.

But the Champion is its Lady’s favourite, and it knows how to survive Earth.

The human was a mature specimen in his kind, dark brown hair and pale skin. He walks weary and lost inside the city, sleeps in places the Champion would rather avoid. But it cannot interfere. The human needs to think he is alone, so he can guide the Champion where it needs to be, where it will carry out its Lady’s will.

So it hunts for the human, killing whatever might get too close and get to its target. Other times, it lets them slip and catch the human, but only the ones it knows the human will be able to kill. Just small inconveniences, so the lack thereof is not suspicious, but not enough to kill its prey. The Champion wants him worn out and tired, vigilant but not alert. One less target to deal with, once the rebels have regrouped.

Lady Haggar rarely explains the details of the hunts She sets her Champion on, but it had gathered intel on the Blade of Marmora under her orders before, and now it knows what it is about to face; a handful of Marmora soldiers, trained and experienced. It only needs to keep them occupied for backup to surround them and kill them. Then, the hunt will be over, and its Lady will put it back to sleep until needed.

Or maybe it would die trying.

Nights are cold, but it doesn’t care. Its body didn’t too, once, mauled and battered until its nerve endings did not work as they should have. Until its Lady had to replace it. This new one is troublesome, as it feels cold and pain. The Champion is used to being careless, to not minding what it costs for it to succeed. Yet, pain slows the body down, which is not helpful for the mission.

The Champion shifts on the concrete on which it’s sitting, adjusting its body so it doesn’t hurt too much, eyes focused on the target. The target has learned. No fires at night if he doesn’t want to attract unwanted attention—the Champion is almost content with the human’s adaptability. It is not its place to be, but its Lady is not here to punish its mistakes. They still happen, from time to time, something slips and the Champion has one too many independent thoughts it is careful to suppress on its own.

When she is, Lady Haggar is quick to bring it back to its place, to let it know where it stands. And it is grateful for it. Not many have received such a gift in the past. Lady Haggar is well-renowned for tiring quickly of her hunters, if they do not meet her expectations.

The Champion is lucky to be her favourite, although many have different reactions to it. Some of the most dedicated envy it, others pity it, and then there are the grateful ones—it does not know why they would be grateful to not be Lady Haggar’s favourites. It does not care.

A quick glance through its night visor reveals the human is sleeping. In the distance, a deep rumble soughs through the night. The Champion turns its attention to the flock of birds leaving the crumbled buildings. It’s close. It stands up and prepares to move.

It will be a long night, and a longer hunt.

* * *

Keith remembers the cities and the clear skies. He remembers the days spent in the desert, racing and improving, the warm and dry air rushing through his hair. He remembers the dusty town he used to go to get groceries, how pops would pick him up and tell him they needed to wash the truck, and somehow, when he and his dad would wash the ram truck and get inexorably wet in the process. Keith goes there, every time things go south and it feels like they’re done for. Keith likes to remember the days he’d lay on the couch and wait for pops to come back, how he’d sit by the windowsill each time pops was called for an emergency. Hot, dry summers, and cold nights—and the TV they had to fix every now and then.

He’d focus on any of that instead, because, Keith doesn’t like to remember the Garrison. The evenings he’d spend in the sim, crushing records on records like he was born for it, tutored by the finest of the finest like he was worth it. The stink eyes he’d get because Takashi Shirogane believed he would be the future for the Garrison pilots, all the accusations and frustrations Keith had to go through. He also remembers the sleepless nights he would spend when finals grew closer. Alone in his room, with only a dim light to keep him company, and some of the loudest and obnoxious songs he hated most. It was a good way to be awake, but not the best to focus on studying.

But Keith also remembers the day it all went to shit. Well, maybe the days, if he thought about it.

The first one was six months after Shiro had left Earth to Kerberos, the displays with update reports everyone was clogging up in front of. If Keith still focuses, he can still feel himself choke up as he pushed past every shoulder and murmuring student. Remembers the way he got stuck between them all, suddenly grateful that the pressure didn’t let his legs give out and drag him down when he read the missions’ result.

Keith had added two more words to the banned ones on his list. 

Pilot error.

The second day was when the sky went dark with Zarkon’s main fleet. It was the day pops called him to make sure Keith was okay, only to hear the deafening sounds of the speakers. It wasn’t a natural catastrophe, Keith remembers thinking. A catastrophe, but nature had nothing to do with it. It had happened fast. Too fast. The Empire struck swift and hard where it hurt most. The Galaxy Garrison and all communication towers were the first to go. Then the airports. Then the stations.

Then they started taking people.

Keith remembers the day they took pops. How he’d shouted and kicked and then fell down one of the desert’s crevasses, left for dead. His mind is smeared with painful memories—his father crying and shouting his name, the hovering sounds of the ship pulling away and up. Keith hates it. He hated the Galra, the Empire, all of it.

Until he could only hate some of it. It happened just as fast, almost. The day a big ship was shot down and, of the twenty pods it ejected, barely half of it made it to the ground. He had gone scavenging with a few other cadets from the Garrison, ex-classmates he’d found within months from the first abductions. He was looking for spare parts, maybe food and supplies, medicines, yet he found a mother and a purpose he could live for—a rebellion, a resistance.

“Remember, our target hasn’t been here for years, he won’t know where to go so we have to track him down and bring him back to safety.”

That being Krolia, a Blade of Marmora. Only a few of them survived from the chase, cut-off from the rest of their group. She left to protect him, and to report vital intel to her comrades. She’s badass, and she instills a sense of reverence in the human community, unlike Kolivan, who earns it by being scary and serious all the time.

Then, there’s Antok and Regris. Keith likes Regris, mostly because Regris _never_ speaks, and Keith doesn’t have to try to act like he understands social clues. They hang out, sometimes with the Garrison cadets. Keith prefers Pidge and Hunk if he’s honest, but where goes Hunk, Lance follows, which means loud and obnoxious displays of affection, and sometimes one challenge too many that Keith doesn’t even bother to pick.

“Our contact inside the main ship will help him get out, but once he does, he’ll be on his own.”

Lance used to keep scores, said he was winning, until the war smothered away his will to tease . Now he’s okay. Keith is okay with Lance, as long as he doesn’t try to pry too much into his life. Keith is okay with Lance, especially after he found out how half of Lance’s family was taken by the Galra. At least he still has half of it, something about the glass half-full, he’d said one time. 

Keith pretends he doesn’t hear him cry during their shower time.

Pidge is like Keith. She’s lost her father and brother to Kerberos, and her mother to the abductions. Keith is happy they met the Blade of Marmora and are sticking together still. Their tech gives Pidge hope and purpose, to find a way to get her mother back and maybe fight the invasion. 

Keith pretends he doesn’t hear her cry at night, on the anniversary of her father and brother’s death.

Hunk is like Keith too, only with a lot more to lose. His family is one of the many who got taken to the ring in the sky. Every one of them, except Hunk. So Hunk has tried one time too many to get to them, recklessly throwing himself in harm’s way, despite the nightmares and fears Keith knows haunts his daily life. Keith respects Hunk, and so does everyone in their small community.

“We’ll track him down, and escort him back ASAP. We stay away from the creatures, we only shoot our way out if we need to, otherwise, we stick to hand-to-hand combat. No need to attract more attention than usual.”

And then there’s his mother. It’s been more than five years, now, and Keith isn’t sure how he feels about the end of the world to get his mother back to him, and allow him to bond with her once more. He’s stopped being angry, he’s a whole lot more confident in himself than he was when Earth was attacked. He was angry at her for leaving, and now he’s not.

“Keith.”

They’ve been working to find a way into the ring in the sky, or the “containment perimeter”, as Kolivan has called it. Keith isn’t happy about this. He has lost already too many people to the Galra to let his father be the guinea pig for this. If they really can get out of the ring in the sky without being noticed, it shouldn’t fall on his father’s life to understand whether it is possible or not.

“Keith.”

Keith blinks and turns towards Kolivan. The room is quiet around him, a pair of dim eyes turned towards him. Both human and not. “Sorry,” Keith mumbles, shrugging off the stiffness in his shoulders.

Kolivan doesn’t stop eyeing him for a solid minute. “I know you do not approve of this, but it’s the only way we can gather intel and make sure your father comes back from the containment perimeter.”

Keith grimaces. “I know.”

“Are you going to be focused enough to treat this as a mission?”

Keith stares back at that, fingers curling up in tight fists, nail digging in his palms. “Yes, sir,” he chews out.

Kolivan doesn't reply, but his upper lips do twitch in annoyance. “We leave in ten doboshes. Get ready.”

* * *

Keith doesn’t want to admit it, but he misses the warmth of the encouraging hug Hunk gave him before leaving. Out in what’s left of the city, the sun doesn’t reach quite like it used to. The sky is covered by heavy clouds, casting an ashen-yellow light over the ruins of the old Garrison base.

He’s glad not all the Garrison grounds have been destroyed when the invasion started, it allowed them to scavenge for military-grade trucks. With those, it’s easier to move between the dirt tracks, or to escape the abominations Haggar has dumped on their planet—the ones that survived the fall, at least. A few do, and that’s usually the cue to stay away from them.

Keith doesn’t want to know what made them so resilient.

As soon as Kolivan’s contact activates his father’s tracker, they’re on the move. It’s far away, way too much for Keith’s likings. They’ll have to cross one of the big cities, and he’s not thrilled to get entangled in the cement jungle. The few times they go there, it’s carnage.

“ETA fifteen doboshes.”

Keith activates his suit’s helmet and unsheathes his mother’s blade. Next to him, Krolia does the same, but with a different blade. One she borrowed from the victims of their crash landing. She’s silent next to him, deadly and cool like only a senior Blade could be.

Keith is glad she’s there with him. Antok and Regris were left at the base, which helps calm Keith’s mind; at least his friends are safe, at least his mother is with him. Then, there’s Axca and Veronica, stationed a few miles away in a safeplace, who will act as backup in case things go to shit.

_We’ll make it back,_ he forces into his mind. They’ll make it, dad will be alright, and Keith will finally have a family, despite... well, the end of the world.

“Five doboshes.”

They sound off, test their equipment one last time, and then the truck stops on its tracks. Right behind the shred of what once must have been a wall.

Keith is the second to get off the truck, following Kolivan’s lead, Krolia close behind him. They approach the wall, and Keith is sent to scout the area behind it. On his visor, the tracker on his father flashes red right in front of him.

His father is _right_ there behind one of the crumbled walls, about to come out onto the street.

Keith leans in and checks whether the coast is clear. The street is full of cars, some have burned down, some just rusted, and other downright crushed under crumbled walls. Still, most of the buildings are holding. Most of the windows have blown up, and some creepers are now climbing to the higher floors, other than that, his visor doesn’t pick up any movements, no huge masses of heat moving towards them.

They’re safe. The beasts are not close by, and his father has lost any search party that might have been dispatched to follow him and bring him back into the main ship.

At the end of the street, a dark figure moves through the cars, coming into Keith’s vision.

“Dad,” Keith lets out as soon as his visor zeroes in on the man. He looks gaunt and underweight in the clothes he’s wearing. In the dim colours of the dawn, Keith can only make out the dark grey bodysuit and somewhat of a mauve purple, worn-down shirt.

“Target acquired,” he hears Kolivan through their comms, “proceed to extraction.”

Keith doesn’t wait for anything else. He steps out of the wall and raises one hand. His father stops dead in his tracks and stumbles backwards. Keith hears him curse.

“Dad,” he calls, without raising his voice. “Dad, it’s me.”

From behind the cars, Hugh’s face pops up with an incredulous look. “Keith?” he lets out. Keith doesn’t get much time to reply, that Hugh is running to them through the cars. “Keith- _Keith,_ my boy-”

Keith forgets the drill for a second, and runs towards him.

Kolivan’s voice thunders through his earpiece, but Keith can’t stop. He’s rushing towards his father with all the speed he can manage, before the air cracks.

A second is all it takes for his world to crumble.

He barely catches the violent purple flash behind his father’s back, before the laser pierces through his father’s chest and right in front of Keith’s feet.

Keith shouts.

He can see the second his father’s face twists in surprise, then shock. Their eyes meet, and Keith’s lungs burn when his father’s eyes fill with dread and worry and dread. 

And then his father is falling, deadweight, on the cold ground.


	2. Maybe it's in the gutter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith finds himself in a very dangerous situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is!!! TBP cameo /sweats
> 
> Watch out for new tags, please! I think I've gotten all of them but if you find something else please lmk asap!

The Champion has been waiting. It’s risking being seen by the target, but nor does the human turn, nor does he check behind his back; too busy surviving the city to worry what lingers behind a broken window.

It has placed the rifle on the edge of one of the buildings. With the rising sun behind its shoulders and a clear view, it is well hidden. The city is quiet all around as it breathes through the dust and cement; it steadies its body, warmth spreading and keeping it somewhat comfortable.

This will be easy. Almost too easy.

The human notices the Blade at the end of the street as soon as he crosses it. The Champion follows him through the scope with patience as its target moves through the cars to reach for the Blade. Its Lady was right.

The human and the Blade grow closer with each step. It waits still, though; it wants to get both of them, not scare them away. A few cars are left in the way of the targets and the Champion adjusts its trajectory, just a few millimeters. There’s nothing in its mind but the mission, and how to accomplish it.

A last exhale.

Its lungs fill.

It takes the shot.

* * *

A shadow tackles Keith and forces him behind a car, knocking his breath out of his lungs and shoving him against the rusty car. Another purple flash melts the asphalt a few inches behind from where he was standing.

He struggles to get free, only to find his mother pinning him down harder. “Keith! Keith, stop!”

Keith can’t catch his breath. He can’t do anything but look to his side, blindly trying to get back to his father. He mumbles, but he can’t formulate anything more coherent than, “We gotta- we have to get him- save him-” and then struggle some more.

Blood throbs in his ears, under the skin, while he fights his own mind from the cold grasp of overwhelming fear that threatens to lock his whole body into place. He has to save his father—maybe- maybe there’s still time. He has to get out there and grab him, drag him to a safe place.

His mother shoves him against the car once more, growling at him. “Keith, focus. Now.”

He feels the slap rather than see it, it’s the right amount of shock that snaps him out for enough time to understand what Krolia is saying. Keith blinks, eyes finally darting to his mother’s helmet. He gasps for air, for words, for so many things all at once he doesn’t know how to keep up with them.

“Listen to me, we’re not leaving him there,” she growls under her helmet as another purple shot pierces through the car and only a few inches from Keith. Krolia crouches more, holds him there. “But I can’t drag him, we’d be an easy target, and Kolivan can’t cover for us forever.”

Keith’s jaw tightens. “I’ll cover you.”

His mother hesitates and then inhales. “You stay close, you don’t engage. We get back to the truck and _go_.” It’s not a question, it’s an order, and Keith knows she’s as much of a leader as Kolivan is.

“I’ll cover you when you need to move.” Kolivan’s voice is deep and as serious through the comms.

Keith nods. His whole body is tensed with worry, but he can do this. He knows he can. “Copy.”

“On my mark...”

Krolia mutters the same and readies herself. Keith unholsters the stolen Empire-issued rifle and crouches, ready to give his mother some cover. He doesn’t know where the sniper is, but that won’t be a problem.

“Now.”

Krolia bolts out of cover, while Keith gets out at the same time and aims for the building.

But there’s nothing to aim to.

Keith gestures his mother to keep moving as she drags his father on her shoulders and moves. “I can’t see them,” Keith whispers.

Kolivan grunts something in Galran, something that sounds a lot like a curse. “Retreat, I’ll cover for both of you. Quickly.”

“Copy that.”

They move, and he’s right behind Krolia, still keeping a close eye on the buildings, or anything that could move in general. It doesn’t take long before a beam of purple light melts through the main door of the building.

“Mom!”

Keith ducks and throws himself behind a car, crawling and running as the white-hot sensation hits his back. It burns, but there’s no sign of his suit to be touched. Whatever it is, it’s powerful and deadly.

“What the _quiznack _was that?!” Krolia hisses through her comms.

“They were expecting us.” Kolivan’s voice is but a grunt. “We have to go, that was too close to an ion cannon projectile.”

“But how? There’s no space for-”

Keith shouts again when yet another beam cuts him. He stops dead in his tracks, momentum pushing him ahead and almost into the beam itself. “We have to go! NOW!” he screams, jumping over another car.

“Keith!”

He turns, only to see a small river of molten lava between him and his mother. Just like the one on his other side. Vapors rise through the air as a car collapses completely inside the river bed and starts melting.

He could jump, but that would only make him an easy target.

“Go! I’ll find a way to reach you!” he shouts.

They need to go. His father needs- medical attention, at best. A proper burial, at worst. He doesn’t know what to hope for.

“I’m not leaving you here, Keith-”

“Mom, _please,_ you can’t save us both at the same time. Dad-”

Krolia’s voice is broken by a wild, pained roar as she bolts again to safety behind a wall. “He’s alive, Keith, he’s still breathing.”

Keith’s shoulders slump, a whole chunk of tension gone with it. “You need to get him back- you have to-”

“I’m not trading his life for yours, that was _not_ the deal.”

Keith grimaces. He knows she’ll never abandon him, not if there’s still hope she can save him, but he knows his father doesn’t have the luxury of time. Not if he’s holding onto whatever little life he still has.

He can’t make her go, but he can force her hand.

“I’ll find a safe place, I promise,” he lets out.

He pushes himself up and starts running.

“Keith- Keith! Keith, no!”

He ignores his mother's pleading.

“Keith, don’t do i-”

He cuts the comms and jumps on one of the cars over the other river. The car tilts dangerously over the edge, pushing him forward. Keith jumps, his jetpack activating and pushing him higher thanks to the angle.

Another beam shoots right past him as he dive-rolls into the concrete and runs towards the building.

Behind him, he can still hear his mother shouting his name. He keeps pushing ahead until he’s inside the first set of broken doors and shattered glasses. From then on, it’s a race against time. He hopes the Empire will follow him and not Krolia.

He’s right.

The beam cuts down a whole row of pillars as he dashes between them. Keith has only enough time to hear the rumble of the building come crashing down, that he’s running through glass and jumping. A cloud of dust and cement pushes him forward and some, little rocks and debris shot through the air.

Something hits him on the back of the head, and on his shoulders. Keith winces as dull pain propagates through his shoulder blades.

“Still alive, assholes!” he shouts as he uses the cloud of dust to slide down the crack through the cement, in what must’ve been the underground’s tunnel. Somewhere ahead, he can barely make out the silhouette of a train.

He stops as soon as he’s covered by a chunk of a tunnel, heart thrumming in his chest like war drums. Sweat drops crawl down his skin, plastering the hair to his forehead and around his neck.

He forces himself to calm down as quiet falls on the whole place.

_Gotta play this smart. _A quiet reminder, all the reprimands from both Kolivan and his mother, how impulsive he is. The enemy knows he’s still alive, if there were any doubts, he’ll make sure they know and follow him to finish the job. All he can bet on is them losing his position in the dust cloud.

Keith moves quietly on the muddy ground, avoiding the puddles of rainwater here and there.

He finally reaches the worn-out rail tracks, thankful for some stable ground. The city is silent around him apart from the rushing of water—it was somewhere to Keith’s right. The underground tunnel had collapsed, and now it shows a still draining aquifer some feet below.

It takes him a moment to realize the water pattern, and another sound that doesn’t belong to it. Footsteps. Keith jumps over the wall and crouches, heart pounding in his chest. He’d lost his rifle in the rush, and only had his blade on-hand now.

It’s better anyway, he’s always been better with close-quarters combat, rather than as a gunner.

The footsteps are coming closer, and Keith is grateful. He doesn’t know how many there are looking for him, but one is almost a blessing. If it’s a soldier, he can get rid of them. If it’s a sentinel, he can let it go about its way, make it think he kept going through the tunnel while he finds another way.

He waits, the echo coming closer, until Keith can _feel_ it in his bones. Whatever it is, it’s close to the crumbled wall. The trembling water covers his breaths as he leans in just enough to peer from the edge of the wall.

Crouched on the tunnel tracks, there’s a bulky figure in a dark blue and orange body armour, but it’s way smaller than what he’s used to. The helmet, too, has a unique shape to it. It’s nothing like Keith has ever seen.

Only the figure’s right arm, though, has the strangest look. It’s a dark grey, almost blackish, with a scale-like pattern on its forearm. Underneath, each scale glows in the eerie bright purple light the Empire proudly embellished itself with. Over the elbow and up to the shoulder, the same purple glow branches in what awfully look like veins.

Keith holds his breath and hurries back under his cover when the figure stands up and looks around.

Fuck, fuck,_ fuck,_ what have they sent after them this time?

Keith knows about the witch’s special force, but he’s only heard about them from the stories of his mother and each Blade. The only time he’s seen one in action, almost twenty human and Blade soldiers were killed in the process of escaping one of Haggar’s pets.

Whatever Haggar has sent after them, if there’s more of them, Keith knows he’s screwed. He also knows, though, is that he hates the thing, and this is the perfect opportunity to kill and escape one of the deadliest of Haggar’s minions.

_No, _Keith mentally hisses with force, _Don’t do anything stupid. Escaping alive is already a strong message._

He hates it, he hates retreating, but he knows he isn’t strong enough to be compared to one of these monsters. Kolivan and his mother barely survived encountering one. How could he survive?

Keith curses under his breath. He can only wait for the soldier to move along and follow the tracks.

_C’mon, you fucker._

The soldier is still quiet behind the wall, and Keith almost wonders if they did leave without Keith noticing. The water covers Keith’s sounds just as much it covers anything else.

He decides to go. Now or never.

Before he can move, the wall explodes right against his back. Keith shouts as something grabs him by the back of his neck and yanks him back through the debris. Keith jerks, but it’s useless. Metal digs into him and he cries in pain as he’s thrown with sheer force into the tunnel’s walls.

The soldier stands in front of him, and Keith realizes that’s not an arm, it’s a prosthetic. An _augmentation._

Shit.

Keith awakens the blade as soon as the soldier charges, ducking just in time to hear the concrete crushed under the soldier’s fist. Keith uses the momentum to spin around and slash the soldier’s shoulder.

The blade does nothing but slide against solid metal. Keith hisses as he barely escapes another blow. Then, the soldier materializes a blade at the end of the augmentation, and attacks again. This time, Keith can only do so much to lessen the damage, while the blade cuts sharp and hot through his bodysuit and into the skin.

Keith uses his free hand to punch the soldier away, put some distance between them, and then he’s holding his side. The suit notifies him of a breach, and Keith distantly acknowledges it. He, too, can definitely _feel _the breach. Hopefully, it’s not too deep.

He doesn’t dwell on it.

Pain is dulled by the adrenaline as he lunges and parries, exchanging hits with the soldier and taking small victories in not getting sliced again. Until the soldier plants a heel in Keith’s abdomen and sends him flying on the tracks.

Keith lands with his back against the metal, a groan of pain escapes him, breath knocked out of his lungs by the impact. He has little to no time to react, and the soldier is on him. Keith uses the soldier’s momentum to slide their blade just over his shoulder and into the ground.

The soldier doesn’t let out but a low grunt when Keith’s blade cuts through the helmet’s black visor and sinks in.

Keith’s just as surprised when the soldier pulls away, holding the helmet with a hand and deactivating the blade to remove it altogether.

What Keith doesn’t expect is the face under it.

If he’s ever felt like the world was crumbling around him, a sarcastic little voice in the back of his mind laughs at the feeling now. This is the day his world crumbles completely around him.

In front of him, Shiro stands with dead eyes and an ugly gash that starts from his cheekbone, up to his eyebrow. His hair is cut in a short, military undercut. He looks older, haunted, and less alive than the last time Keith has seen him.

“Shiro?” Keith manages to call.

Shiro hesitates, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it frown briefly appears on his face, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he leaps forward and attacks Keith once more.

Keith isn’t fast enough to dodge the hit, still dumbfounded by the realization. He gets hit with full force against his sternum, leaving him breathless and with a choked scream in his throat. He hits the tunnel wall again, gasping for air, his vision blurred and unfocused.

When he looks up, Shiro is stalking towards him with cold determination.

“Shiro! It’s me- it's Keith!” he shouts again, deactivating the suit’s helmet and raising his hands. Shiro flinches. “What happened to you? I thought you were... why- why are you-”

Shiro doesn’t let him speak, he lunges and strikes again. Keith feels it, rather than see it, the crack of his cheekbone against Shiro’s knuckles. Keith staggers and falls on his back, panting, vision dotting with black spots. He raises blindly his hand in a sloppy defense.

“Shiro, stop!”

Shiro doesn’t stop.

He keeps coming at Keith with brute strength, forcing Keith to answer each blow with more and more ferocity. Keith’s head feels light and heavy at the same time, like his thoughts are pulling his walls in, and the pressure will be too much. He feels like exploding.

Every now and then, he pleads for Shiro to stop, to recognize him, but Shiro doesn’t blink—not even once. It unsettles Keith on a level he didn’t think it would possible anymore. Yet, here he is, alive and... not Shiro anymore.

His senses sharpen with each attack, he realizes it when he snarls and cuts his lip on his fangs, counterattacking. Shiro is taken aback from the sudden reaction and is cornered quickly as Keith kicks him against the wall and rushes to immobilize him.

It’s not easy, but he manages to pin Shiro against the wall and press his forearm to Shiro’s throat and _push._ Shiro hisses and snarls back, and Keith has but little time before he’s overthrown and pushed against the wall with Shiro’s flesh hand.

“That rebel said it will be back for you,” Shiro states with cold, calculating voice, “a bait for a bait.”

Keith’s blood runs cold. _No, _Shiro can’t seriously be doing this. “She’s far better than me- she... won’t...”

“It has to, or I will kill you.” Shiro smiles, but it’s not the smile Keith remembers. The difference is jarring, it lets Keith with nothing but cold, slithering dread through his insides. “You cannot win.”

Keith chokes. His eyes are burning with dust and tears. He can see Shiro’s metal arm lighting up in hot-white, rimmed with blinding purple. He wants to shout, to call for help, but he knows no one will be able to come back to him before Shiro has his way with him.

Keith isn’t going to plead for mercy. Whatever this is in front of him, he’s not going to make Shiro kill him before he lets the Galra hurt his mother.

Then, it happens all too fast to register.

He barely registers the sudden heat right in front of his face, clouded by the loud gunshot. He’s so on edge, he doesn’t realize Shiro lets go of him, pulling away and covering his face in pain, pupils shrunk turning and zeroing on- something that isn’t Keith.

Keith moves without thinking, awakening his blade and _cutting._ He doesn’t even know what he’s aiming for until a heavy _thump_ breaks the silence and Shiro is screaming in pain. Keith stares down at the mechanical arm, still powering up and releasing its energy.

He’s sent flying backwards, until he hits something hard.

His vision blacks out, and Keith merely knows he’s falling down before darkness swallows him whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF god i feel like this is going too fast but aklsdjalksdjsaklj im Bad at taking things slow so have some suspance!!!
> 
> Comments & kudos are always appreciated, if you want to yell at me, I have a twitter (@thorstbench)! Tysm for reading <3


	3. You're the nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith makes a dangerous gamble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF sorry for the long wait folks, work has been hectic and my energies ran out p quickly. I'm back and this is all the chapters I had in store so far, anything I'll post, I'll have to write entirely (which means monthly updates rather than weekly ones :c sorry!)
> 
> If you'd like to see more sneak peeks of them, though, check out my twitter & the pinned tweet!
> 
> Watch out for dark themes and a mildly graphic nightmare about Shiro being un/dead, graphic description of injury, blood, and gore!! If you find any tags I might be missing, please do let me know.

Keith wakes up to a pounding headache.

His body is stiff and aching, so much so, that all he can do is move his head. The air is so thick with plaster dust, he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. Lead light filters through it, and Keith admires as the dust cloud curls and dissipate slowly, revealing the cracks through the tunnel walls. Rusty, red metal rods still hold onto the cement, crooked and twisted, snapped and tore—to the point, some of the plaster around them shows signs of cave-ins.

He’s still in the tunnel, only he doesn’t recognize it anymore; part of it has fully collapsed, and now the dark grey sky is visible even from where Keith is. Heavy clouds writhe over him like a giant snake’s coils, threatening downpours—a thunderstorm closing in. Kolivan had mentioned it, but he’d also said they would’ve been long gone before it hit them.

Keith doesn’t feel his body the way he’s supposed to. When he moves, he understands why; it hurts. All of it, evenly, he only wasn’t registering it. He sits up by sheer will power, a pained groan escapes him. His body protests all the way up but he doesn’t pay it any mind; he needs to move, or he’s as good as dead. Something pops, and Keith stills, eyes shutting close as he tests his movements—they’re limited, but enough. It’s a miracle he can move at all, that nothing bigger has fallen onto him.

He finds his knife embedded between plaster and debris, just a few feet away from him. Getting there is hard, but extracting it is harder. It takes him a few tries before he can pull it out. His vision threatens to blacken, and his head spins one times too many, but it all fades to the back of his mind when Keith turns, finding Shiro’s body lying on the other side of the railtrack, his body half hidden by the rubble.

Keith doesn’t even think about what he’s doing until he’s up, and his ribs almost choke him into a death grip. He coughs, holding his hands close to his chest as he trips and stumbles to Shiro.  _ Shiro’s hurt, _ is all his mind can think of as he trips and stumbles, falling right next to Shiro’s shoulders. He’s scraped knees, but it’s a mere afterthought of the ache. Right now, Shiro’s what’s important. Keith puts his hand to his neck, desperate to feel for a pulse.

It takes so much time for his hand to stop trembling, that he almost breaks down sobbing. There’s something, but it’s so weak, Keith has to exhale through the shivers and ground himself. Shiro’s still breathing, but it’s weak and laboured.

Keith hurries up as he takes each rubble and piles it away wherever there’s still space. His arms almost give out, but he pushes through. Shiro still looks the same when he looks at him; he’s the same Shiro Keith has waved goodbye as he departed on the Kerberos mission, only with a bigger build and battered skin. Now, with eyes closed and his face slack, Keith is reminded of just how handsome he is; nausea bubbles up inside him when he realizes, he’d almost forgotten what Shiro looked like. Even something as simple as his features. It’s a bittersweet feeling, to finally get to see the man he’s loved for so long this way.

Alive, but not really.

Him, yet not himself.

“What happened to you?” Keith whispers, brushing a messy lock of hair away from Shiro’s face. He flinches when he sees the bloody gash that he’s inflicted. It could cost Shiro an eye, and he’s not proud of that.

He was defending himself, he wasn’t fighting to  _ kill _ .

Keith barely contains the tears prickling at his eyes. He has to stop and press his palm’s heels against his visor, but it’s no use. He sucks in up, and puts himself back to work. He’s not going to leave Shiro here, as much as he wants answers for what he’s done, Shiro was his friend. Shiro was the only person who’d never given up on his future, his talent, his- everything, really.

It was Shiro who got Keith out of an early misfit life, he gave Keith another path he could walk on, something that wouldn’t force him to break the law in order to survive and provide for himself. Each piece of rubble is heavier, and Keith can feel the hysteria building up inside him. The images echo in his head mocking him as he forces the boulder off Shiro’s body.

The suit helps him move, it keeps the pain at bay, but not that much. Soon, it won’t be enough.

Shiro’s bloody under the rocks. So,  _ so  _ bloody. There’s so much blood, Keith is scared Shiro will bleed out before he can even do anything. He drags Shiro out from the last bits of rubble until they’re close to the wall, safe from any eyes from above; staying under the open sky is never a good choice. Not if you want to get caught by a sentinel.

Keith tears parts of Shiro’s suit open and curses. The bleeding shows no signs of stopping from two main, wide ugly gashes; one is just under Shiro’s ribcage, and the other just over his collarbone. Keith doesn’t know if something is broken, but he wouldn’t be surprised. The rest of Shiro’s body is a mix of old scars and new cuts and extensive bruises, some of them so dark and swollen, Keith doesn’t know if he’ll need to do something about them.

First, he needs to stop the bleeding, but he’s not equipped with medical kits, nor can he use his suit on someone else. Shiro wouldn’t fit even if Keith tried to. All that is left to do is check around, and hope he finds any residual cloth anywhere.

He taps onto the helmet’s visor and expands the map, making it coincide with a one from old geo-localization maps. He taps onto his own tracker, and the map conforms to the rest of the tunnel, showing what once was there; a whole system of underground trains that connected the whole city. He turns around, and he almost misses it; it’s Galran, and Keith isn’t that good at it, but the Blades have been teaching everyone, working on a universal translator that could convert Galran in English. It’s still not ready. A tailor, just within a hundred feet from there. He’s not sure what sort of universal being wills Keith to finally have some luck, but Keith isn’t going to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Keith checks whether the coast is clear, and then he’s off. His body protests all the way up until he’s standing and walking outside the crumbled down walls, and then crawling up on the street. He needs bandages, and he doesn’t carry any with himself. He gives one last look at Shiro before he walks out entirely into the street. He doesn’t need to wander much before he finds the abandoned and destroyed tailor shop. The whole window is but a bunch of glass shards on the ground, its walls have been torn down by a car. Keith doesn’t stick around to check whether the bloody stain on the windshield hides a body behind it; it wouldn’t be the first corpse he finds deep into the city.

He  _ could _ have waited for anyone to find them, but Keith doesn’t know how long that will take—he has to move, and quickly. They have medicines back at their camp, he just needs to stop the bleeding and drag Shiro back. He doesn’t know how he’ll manage to, but Keith has been anything but resourceful in the last years. Even if he has to crawl, he’s  _ not _ going to leave Shiro here.

A good thing about the apocalypse is, the Galra don’t care about human rural society. They left everything as it was—anything that wasn’t destroyed in the invasion, that is. No one could even raid most of the shops in the city, because everyone just disappeared en masse. Keith still doesn’t know how they let it happen, but they did. He knows there’s been hunts and mass-kidnapping, and blood. God, so much blood. Almost all the human population was taken and made to completely disappear in just a week.

He finds what he’s looking for within a few doboshes of rummaging through debris, dust, and burned-up bundles of synthetic cloth. A whole roll of cotton, dusty and half torn. He has to remove almost five feet before he’s satisfied with it. It’s not clean and sterile, but it’ll have to do. He makes sure he keeps part of the cloth untouched when he cuts with his mother’s luxite blade, and then rolls it on its own.

Before he knows it, he’s running back to the tunnel, ignoring the burning of his lungs and how his breath gets shorter and heavier with each step.

His whole side hurts, a sharp throb he can’t make go away, just like his lungs and cheekbone. His suit quietly beeps, steady and unnerving as ever, letting him know the bleeding is being taken care of, but it’s not sufficient. He doesn’t know how much time he has before he bleeds out himself, before he blacks out and collapses.

He just hopes all the blood is flowing out, instead of  _ inside _ ; that’s all he can do, hope he has no internal bleedings. Then again, luck has never been on his side in these years, so Keith wouldn’t be surprised that his vitals are as shit as it could ever get. He certainly feels like it.

The collapsed tunnel is clearly visible from the street level, he can see perfectly where the cement gives in and delines the tunnel’s walls and where it goes on just over the crossing, and solid cement. Keith is close to the slope when he hears a scream. It’s all too familiar to have misheard it. Too  _ sharp _ and animal not to recognize it. He’s never heard his mother this desperate since she crash landed on Earth to find out her mate had been taken, and her son as good as dead.

“Wake up!” she growls.

A thud. Flesh hitting metal.

Keith hurries because his voice won’t come out. It’s barely a rasp.  _ Mom, _ his mind supplies,  _ mom ‘m here mom ‘m here mom- _

Krolia is pointing her gun to the same unconscious Shiro when Keith stumbles down the rubble of the collapsed tunnel. She’s screaming at him, screaming and crying. Keith knows fear the second she grabs Shiro’s collar and lifts him up—even if Shiro’s body is limp, dead weight.

“What have you done to my son?!” she shouts, voice breaking and shivering.

Keith can’t think of anything but the sight of her gun loading its next shot, now aimed at Shiro’s head.

He runs.

He doesn’t remember screaming, too. It’s a ragged and animal, “ _ NO! _ ”, and he lets it all out. Krolia is startled by it, and she’s turning towards him, ready to shoot—Keith closes his eyes.

His face connects with Krolia’s armor, and it hurts so much worse, Keith knows for sure it’s broken. He slams into her and it’s a miracle he doesn’t follow, stumbling on the floor while Krolia is knocked away from him (from Shiro). His body moves before he can think; he’s crawling on top of Shiro and shielding him from her in tics, breaths ragged and body screaming in pain, telling him to  _ stop _ moving- stop,  _ stop _ . Her helmet hides her surprise, but her body language speaks volumes when she stumbles backward and comes to a halt.

Silence.

Keith doesn’t look.

Instead, he holds himself tight around Shiro’s body. He holds on, the fabric lays forgotten between his chest and Shiro’s, but he  _ needs _ to do this. For himself, he thinks. Selfish. Yet, he knows Shiro isn’t Shiro, he’s lost somewhere inside the beast they put inside of him. He’s shaking and he only realises it when he can’t properly lay on Shiro. His hands won’t stop trembling, and his arms have gone weak from the strain.

“Keith?” Krolia croaks out. It’s weak, incredulous. She doesn’t understand.

And how could she? Keith has never told her about any of this. Any of the Kerberos crew members. Anything about Shiro. Shiro was supposed to be dead, Keith was still mourning when she arrived, and he hasn’t even given himself time to accept it, to say goodbye and move on. Krolia had respected his silence, the wounds that clearly were still fresh; she had backed off, and Keith hadn’t brought it up anymore.

“ _ Keith. _ ” Krolia’s voice is strained and pained; god Keith doesn’t know how he’ll tell her, how he can ever look her in the eye and tell her, the monster that’s shot Pops is his first love, his greatest loss, his last tragedy. “What are you doing? Get away from that thing,” she whispers. “ _ Get away from it. _ ”

Keith shakes his head, and he’s sobbing, but he’s got no liquids to spear, his mouth tastes like ashes and dirt and blood, his lips tremble the first time he tries to speak. Nothing but a pitiful noise comes out.

Krolia’s pained voice comes crashing down on him like a waterfall. “Keith, we’ve talked about this- you need to move, my little one. You can’t save this one. It’s not a human anymore-”

That’s what makes him snap. It’s desperate and he can barely breathe, but he  _ needs _ to tell her. “He’s- a  _ friend _ , mom!” Keith cries out. “He’s a friend- please, we have to help him. Please.” He doesn’t know how, nor if Shiro can be helped, but they need to try at least. Keith can’t leave him like this. Not now, not ever, no matter what other atrocities they have to suffer.

Krolia is quiet behind him, and Keith doesn’t hear her anymore when the first sob and hiccup break through his chest—and it hurts, it hurts his whole body, and his throat won’t open up properly to let him breathe. He chokes on air, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. “Please. He’s- he’s my friend- he’s my friend-”

His head spins more and more by the second, it’s light and heavy at the same time. He’s scared because he knows he’s about to pass out. He’s scared, because if he does, there’s no telling what will happen to Shiro. Krolia is many things, but a mother first and foremost; Keith has seen her go to lengths in order to keep him safe—even if it meant putting herself to risk. She could decide his isn’t worth Keith’s health and safety, she could decide for him and tear his aching body from Shiro’s dying one. She could do so much, and Keith doesn’t trust she’ll do what Keith asks her to, but what she thinks will be best for him.

“He’s my friend, he saved me- he saved me,” he cries quietly as the lights go out.

He’s the only one that knows Shiro, who can vouch for the person Shiro used to be. Krolia is many things, and ruthless is one of them when Keith is endangered in any shape or form. He needs to say more, to  _ make _ her understand that Shiro is too important to be cut off.

_ Please, _ he thinks as his mouth moves without ever grasping onto the sounds.  _ Please. _

Blackness doesn’t feel like anything; it’s heavy and it drags him under, but he’s already on the floor.

No, not the floor, someone’s body.

Shiro’s body is still beneath him, cold and numb like the dead.

* * *

When he wakes up, it’s dusk. The whole world is unfocused at the edges of Keith’s vision, a colourful blur that won’t stop shaking. Keith scowls when his eyes won’t stop throbbing—but it doesn’t go away, not even when he closes them shut. He’s laying down somewhere warm and comfortable, and he can see the dirty white of over-used sheets, that not even washing them can do anything. When he turns, he notices her; next to him, his mother sits with murderous eyes pointed somewhere ahead of her. She’s still wearing her suit, and Keith doesn’t miss the luxite blade, and the gun.

_ Mom. _

Krolia turns and looks at him, her features soften immediately when she leans in. “Keith, rest, you’ve lost a lot of blood,” she cups his face with gentle hands, pressing a careful kiss to his forehead—Keith inhales, even if his ribs hurt, when she presses her forehead to his. She’s so careful, Keith almost doesn’t feel it.

“Mom,” he calls again, and this time it’s desperate.  _ Tell me you’ve saved him, _ he wants to say—but nothing comes out.

“Shhh, it’s alright Keith,” she hums back, “go back to sleep.”

Keith doesn’t remember drifting off, but he remembers bits here and there. Mostly, the car ride. The bumps, the sounds, it all mixes up into a confusing cacophony. He floats in it, and his mind wanders, losing itself in swirls and dead ends of his thoughts.

Until Shiro is in front of him, whole and himself. He stares, and Keith doesn’t know if he’s floating anymore or if he’s drowning. Shiro looks at him with a seriousness Keith has only seen when they’d spoken of his disease, or Adam’s break up.

He wants to ask something, to know what’s wrong, but when Keith opens his mouth, nothing comes out.

There’s too much confusion, too many things inside him, that it exits messily. It’s everything, all together, just out in the open. It’s Keith’s voices, but they’re rough and pleading, serious and pained, happy and relieved. All at the same time. It’s nostalgic, and it’s bitter.

Keith remembers the day he regretted all the things he hadn’t said.

Shiro disappears inside the swirls of words and concepts. He’s swallowed by it all, and Keith can’t stop the flow escaping his mouth. He just won’t stop screaming, so he moves. He swims to Shiro; it’s like walking through high mud, dragging his feet against the current.

He digs, and digs, and eventually, everything comes undone in cold clarity.

It’s a grave.

Shiro’s grave.

Nameless, forgotten, not even that deeply seated underground. It’s there to be found by anyone—by a stranger who’ll rob it and then forget about it. Would they even read Shiro’s name? Keith can’t find it anywhere. There’s  _ nothing _ that would even let anyone know, someone important rests here under the dried-out soil. And Keith’s hands are broken. He’s been digging so much, for so long, his nails aren’t white anymore. How can he ever put it all back in one piece?

He shouldn’t disturb the dead. There’s a reason they’re buried, not to be seen or meddled with, yet he’s here—his knees hard on the anonymous coffin, scraping themselves on rocks, dirtying themselves on black earth.

“Shiro,” he calls still.

He  _ shouldn’t _ be disturbing the dead.

No one answers.

“ _ Shiro _ ,” tears brim over his eyelids, falling down on the coffin—and suddenly it’s raining, and the earth is mud again.

_ Let the dead be, boy _ , a voice warns.  _ Leave the dead dead, boy. _

He bangs on the coffin, as if his fists could ever break it. Yet it does, but the wood doesn’t splinter. It bends and it molds to his fists, but it never gives. No matter how hard Keith hits, it just  _ won’t  _ break. Keith’s hands start bleeding with each hit, and the harder he tries, the more water fills the hole, to the point the mud threatens to cover it again.

And, in that moment, Keith knows; he either digs Shiro out of it, or he dies under with him.

“ _ Shiro, please! _ ”

[...]

Keith wakes up to the same pounding headache.

It shouldn’t surprise him, considering how disastrously the mission went, but he can’t complain. He’s alive. And- well. He’s alive.

It takes him a lot, before he can be awake for more than five minutes, before he stops slumping back into a dreamless sleep. He loses count of how many times he wakes up screaming Shiro’s name until someone is there to hear him, and he’s not alone anymore with himself. It’s a shame it has to be Pidge, of all people.

Keith is too tired and weak to even come up with an excuse, let alone to lie to Pidge. Still he tries with a curt and concise, “I’m fine.”

The silence that follows speaks volumes.

“You were screaming our  _ dead  _ senior officer’s name, Keith _ , _ ” Pidge says as she adjusts her glasses. “Do you- do you want to talk about it?”

Keith looks at her. It’s quiet inside the infirmary. The walls are relatively clean, but there’s not even half the staff to take care of it—everyone does what they can, but it’s not the most ideal place. It’s something, but not nearly enough—they don’t have enough energy to run a proper healing facility. At least it’s not the blinding white they used to have in hospitals, Keith notices. It still smells of hand sanitizer, though, when Keith inhale and grimaces.

Does he want to talk about it? “No, not really.”

Pidge wrinkles her nose. He knows she’s not convinced.

Keith averts his eyes, and then decides to close them altogether.

Beside him, Pidge sighs and shifts on her seat. “Okay. Just. You know you can talk to me any time, right?”

Keith nods, turning towards her once more in search of her eyes. Her big, round glasses have a crack on them, and her hair is cut shorter than the first time Keith has met her. She looks all the boy she was passing for when they met. “I know, kid,” he reassures.

“Ugh, don’t say it like that, you’re  _ not _ that older than me. Although you sure like to act like it,” Pidge snorts. She stays with him for so long, Keith loses track of time. They don’t speak much after it; yeah, Keith laughs at her dry sarcasm, but that’s it. The more time passes, the more he’s unsure whether he should be in company at all. Too many questions fill his mind, but two in particular are currently fighting for the biggest source of anxiety.

Keith closes his eyes, but there’s nothing much he can do other than focus on things that escape his grasp. He wants to see Shiro. He wants to know if Shiro is alright—if his mother has even given it any thought, to bring him back with them. Part of him knows, Krolia would’ve never, he knows she will apologise, and tell him that it’s for the community’s best; they couldn’t possibly endanger all the ones living here just for Keith’s passing whim, could they? Still, it doesn’t stop him from wanting to cry, to be disappointed and angry, because he knows he will be when she comes to try to explain the situation to him.

Keith is just about to drift off once again when Krolia’s voice breaks the silence and brings him back to attention—still, he doesn’t open his eyes. “Thank you, Katie, you can go rest now,” his mother’s tone is quiet and careful, the same softness she uses with Keith.

Keith knows she has sympathy for the Hots, for how they too have lost father and son to the Galra. It’s hard not to consider Pidge and Colleen as family, these days, and Keith hasn’t really fought to keep them out.

“I think he’s finally asleep,” Pidge murmurs.

Shuffling sounds, and then the swift sound of the door closing. He can feel his mother sitting down next to him. She sighs, and Keith relaxes. “You can open your eyes now, Keith,”  _ she’s gone, _ hangs unspoken between them.

Keith turns and looks at her.

It doesn’t take her much to know what he wants to know. She doesn’t look happy, but her eyes aren’t swollen with tears. He expected worse. “Your father is- in critical conditions. The shot was... close to his heart. Kolivan put him into the best working healing pod we have.”

It’s like his breath has been punched out of his lungs.

Shiro’s name is there. The culprit of it all, yet confusion stains the accusation. He knows she has questions, too.

“The hunter has been restrained. He’s under heavy sedatives. We were able to- stop the hemorrhage. But he’s not going to be awake any time soon.”

Keith lets out a shaky breath he didn’t know he was holding. He knows it must’ve cost them time and resources to do this; both of them, precious things they don’t have right now. Still, they had to. He had to. He couldn’t leave Shiro there. Keith couldn’t, right? He couldn’t-

“I’m sorry.” His voice comes up before he can stop it. He knows Krolia was right—he knows the humans captured by the Galra are to be considered dead, but he knows leaving Shiro would’ve just been worse than the guilt he now has to stomach. “Thank you.”

Krolia doesn’t answer. Keith doesn’t blame her. He knows this was a problem, he knows he should mention it, because this is the kind of thing he should be grateful for. And no, he isn’t welcome.

“I trust you have a good reason, Keith,” she whispers instead. “He has markings from the witch’s curses. His arm reeks of corrupted quintessence.”

On second thought, Keith needs to throw up.

Krolia stops talking, but her eyes are still there, looking at him—he knows he has to give her something, if not for her, for Kolivan and the rest of the Blade. She wants a reason so that they can keep Shiro, instead of killing him. Keith forces the nausea back down, he swallows, although it doesn’t make it any better.

“He’s my friend,” he forces out. “He’s- he’s... He’s done a lot. For me. When- when I was younger. I owe him a lot.”

Krolia lowers her head, shoulders slumping. “Keith. I don’t know if he can ever- Haggar is renowned for toying with the creatures she’s intrigued by,” she whispers. Her hand reaches for Keith’s, but Keith doesn’t know if he wants to hold it. “She breaks them, Keith.”

Keith’s hand snaps away from Krolia’s. Laboured breaths keep him from speaking right away, but the sole idea of-

_ No.  _ “Shiro’s strong. He’s smart. I saw it. He- he  _ reacted  _ when I called him.” He says it, but he knows it’s a lie. Shiro hadn’t hesitated, not once, when Keith had tried to appeal to him. Still, his eyes changed, and Keith wants to believe there’s still something- still  _ someone _ within the shell of what was once a human.

Krolia’s eyes are full of frightening pain when he looks at her, fainting confidence, or at least some degree of trust. They exchange a silent look, until she smiles, bitter and apologetic. “Okay,” she hums. “I’ll,” a deep, tired sigh breaks her speech, “talk to Kolivan about it. Maybe we can get some useful intel from him.”

Keith’s eyes snap to her when she says it, and it’s seconds before she understands. Her features harden when she leans in. “We’re  _ not _ going to torture him, Keith. This, I promise.”

It doesn’t help Keith’s gut from twisting. He nods, it’s mechanical, broken, before he turns away for the last time and tries to relax unsuccessfully. Tears prickle at the back of his eyes when he whispers a choked out, “I’m tired.”

Krolia stands up in a second. “Of course,” she reaches out, brushing Keith’s head with delicate hands, “Sleep. Everyone is waiting for you.”

He doesn’t look as Krolia leaves the room and gives him some space. She knows him too well to fall for a stupid lie. Still, she pretends to, and Keith is grateful she’s not there when the first sob breaks through the façade of calm, breaking the quiet silence as his whole body shakes. He lets many things out, under the small hiding that his hand provides—the one that’s not covered in IVs, at least. He cries his pain out quietly and as quickly as he can, until it leaves him empty and tired. Until all he can do is close his eyes and hope the night lasts longer than his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank u so much for reading!!!!! Come scream with me on twitter @thorstbench!!!! <3
> 
> As always, comments & kudos fuel me, so if you're wondering whether u should or shouldn't send me the nonsensical keysmashes, PLEASE DO

**Author's Note:**

> TYSM FOR READING!!!!
> 
> Come find me on twitter (@thorstbench)!! I post fic-threads there & lots of smut (s he i th) and freak out over these two.
> 
> Stay tuned for next update sdklasj kudos & comments are amazing & always welcomed. Ilu all <3


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